Hollowpox The Hunt for Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend Page 0,60
a very young child’s impression of a flower, if all they had to draw with was a grey crayon held between their toes.
‘Would you believe me if I told you that this flower here is the earliest known work of Alfirk Antares?’ Brilliance asked, smiling fondly at it.
Morrigan had no idea who Alfirk Antares was, but obviously these children did. They all three gasped, absolute glee written on their faces, as if they’d been told their favourite celebrity was in the room.
‘He was only nine years old,’ she said, nodding at the older boy. ‘Same age as you are now, Owain. Not bad for his first act of Weaving, don’t you agree?’
Brilliance led them farther along the winding path, reaching out now and then to touch the velvety petals of a rose, or to run her hand lightly through a pond, leaving a rippling bioluminescent trail in its wake. The children followed, open-mouthed, eyes darting in every direction. Morrigan tagged along, feeling equally overcome.
‘We’re going to start with the same task assigned to every Wundersmith who has ever entered this garden,’ explained Brilliance. ‘You will find it incredibly simple to do, yet monstrously difficult to do well … and just about impossible to do perfectly. But that’s what the Gossamer-Spun Garden is for. Mistakes. Failures. Practice. So let’s get started. Please begin by calling Wunder.’
Morrigan followed along with Brilliance Amadeo’s instructions, and to her delight, found she could do everything the other children could. Brilliance was a wonderful teacher – patient and precise, always willing to slow down or repeat herself if needed.
‘Weaving is about expanding and contracting one’s imagination, weaving together thought, creativity and physical matter to manipulate and create our own reality and bring our vision to life. When we Weave, we pull threads from the Gossamer and rearrange them, either to influence the world as it is …’ (She paused for a demonstration, and sent an enormous vine swinging back and forth in the distance with a casual flick of her wrist.) ‘… or to make the world anew.’
When Morrigan narrowed her eyes, she could just make out the near-invisible, golden-white threads of Wunder working in the background, darting to and fro to obey their unspoken orders. She soon discovered that she needn’t properly sing to call Wunder – it was paying closer attention to her, like a dog alert to its owner’s every command. In this kind of constant communication, she only had to hum a few notes to feel it gathering to her fingertips.
Just like Ezra Squall, she thought. The realisation came with a strange mix of alarm and satisfaction.
By the end of the lesson, the students – Morrigan included – had each created their own clumsy sort of pseudo-flower, wonky and imprecise as they were. In her little patch of garden bed, Morrigan had tried to make a red rose and instead ended up with something more closely resembling a vomit-green pillbox hat on a stick.
Nevertheless, it was her vomit-green pillbox hat on a stick. Morrigan felt elated. I made that, she kept thinking while she sat on the ground, staring at it. She felt powerful and brilliant and artistic, just like Brilliance Amadeo herself.
As the ghostly hour ended, her ghostly teacher and classmates and the beautiful Gossamer-Spun Garden began to cut in and out, turning staticky, and then simply melted away. Morrigan preferred to watch the ghostly hours she visited fade, rather than step back through the curtain. It took longer, but there was something calming about remaining still while the world around her gently transformed.
Once Morrigan was alone again in Van Ophoven she noticed how tired she felt. No, exhausted.
She should leave. She should get up and go back to the study chamber, or … what time was it? Maybe she ought to be going back to Hometrain by now.
Get up, she told herself silently. But nothing happened.
She was so tired. Her body simply wouldn’t do what she was telling it.
It made her think of Golders Night, when she’d sat on the ground in that alleyway, soaked to the bone and shivering, her leg bleeding and throbbing. But at least she’d known what was wrong with her then, known specifically what the obstacles were to her getting up and moving: the cold, the blood loss, the pain.
This felt different. Not as if something had happened to her body, but as if something had been removed from it. Drained out of her. Just … gone.
How long had she been sitting there, she wondered?